sprawl15:Because that writing is all story related, and I assumed you were smart enough to understood that. It all serves to build up the story - the background, the elements, the movement of pieces beyond the players' purview. It's 100% story.

Story =/= plot. You have a strange habit of shifting the arguement slightly when a statement you make is rebutted.

Most of the recordings are not plot elements. They flesh out the story, yes, but knowing the background of the corpses crucified in Ryan's antechamber does not change the plot.

but we're talking about the artistic value of a game as relating to perfection of the craft.

..."SS2 having better raw music" would have been supporting your opinion. Both games would be diminished artistically if they had "Friday" looping as their soundtrack. Having good music supports the artistry of both games.

But that's besides the point - you brought up this nebulous idea of 'general writing' and haven't yet figured out what you meant with it. Feel free to come up with a different example of 'general writing' than the recordings, if it bugs you so much.

Cubicle Jockey:..."SS2 having better raw music" would have been supporting your opinion.

It doesn't matter how much you love Rush, if they were the soundtrack for Silent Hill 2 you would have to say the music in that game was farking terrible. The individual songs' independent value as music is 100% irrelevant when talking about a larger composition - the use of music must be considered in terms of how it enhances that composition. I do prefer SS2's individual songs to Bioshock's songs, but that is utterly meaningless since they are both methods to an end. Simply having good music doesn't support the artistry without proper use. That's why I brought up how it was used, and why use is profoundly important.

The opening of Bioshock, for instance, when Rapture is revealed, uses music as a way to increase the impact of the set reveal - the underwater city, its grandeur, etc. It's a stimulus for a visual cue. Not BAD design, but not really interactive and kind of missing the point of the medium. In contrast, the opening of SS2, where you get out of the decompression area and have a few seconds has no music. Just the background hum and chirps of the computer. But it's still absolutely a musical decision - the lack of music creates a vacuous space for your mind to fill, it produces a sense of dread, of not belonging. The sudden stillness presents the entire setting - not just its visuals - as one of desolation. It's a far more effective musical decision, a stronger musical design choice, and a more artistic method than the similar moment in Bioshock despite no actual song being played.

That's the difference. We aren't just comparing the merits of each song on the soundtrack in a vacuum. They're part of the game. They have to be considered as part of the game and how they're used.

Mike_LowELL:What did I say that you disagree with? Or is this one of those "I disagree you but I don't quite have the knowledge of the topic to refute your opinions, so I'll try to paint you as a smarmy elitist" conversations?

Well, for starters you're using difficulty and "who did it first" as a gauge for artistic merit. You wrote an entire paragraph about how easily you beat Portal, but not ONE mention of the backstory hinted by the graffiti on the walls, the ideas alluded to by the Chell/GLaDoS relationship, the design of GlaDOS herself, the Companion Cube, nothing. Your ideas of what constitutes art are entirely farked, and you're a smarmy elitist about it. Just shut up, your opinion is nowhere near as great as you think it is and your blog sucks.

frepnog:Antimatter: frepnog: doglover: Cythraul: But almost any game these days that has a decent budget should probably be considered 'art.'

False.

GTA 4 had a huge budget and was an amazing game at the time, but it wasn't groundbreaking or meaningful, it was just a game.

if you took no meaning from Niko Bellic's tragic tale, then I simply don't know how to talk to you. The story told in GTA4 is amazingly well thought out and is absolutely art. It is also an amazing game NOW. No other sandbox style game has bettered it, and the only thing out that comes close is Red Dead Redemption, amazingly enough a game made by the same folks.

/i know people still claim that San Andreas was better. It is not. Most of the crap you do in that game was tedious and not fun in any way. It told a great story but the GAME is hard to play after playing GTA4. Man, you just can't go back to primitive 3d graphics.

//many SNES games hold up better than many PS\PS2 level games.

No, they really don't, it;s just nostalgia goggles in action.

actually, they really do because the older sprite based hand drawn art styles still look decent compared to crap early 3d visuals. Compare say, Chrono Trigger to say Chrono Cross. Chrono Cross looks like complete ass (we are speaking strictly visual here) while chrono trigger still looks like a cartoon of sorts. you can still lose yourself in Chrono Trigger, but the graphics in Chrono Cross will have you turn that shiat off before long. sega saturn games, TONS of PS1 games, quite a few PS2 games, N64 games (GOLDENEYE) all suffer to a degree from "crappy polygon graphic-itis".

And older pixel based games have the same issue, ie they are blocky messes with little detail, or lot of recycled details. It's just people excuse away all the sprite flaws, but nitpick about the polygon flaws.

For example, when I last played yoshi's island on the snes, I thought it looked amazing. When I watch videos online, it still help up well, but when I actually find myself with it on an actual tv screen from an actual snes, I was shocked at how rough the game looked. A lot of games I used to think looked quite nice actually look rather bad in person when seen at their native resolutions on a real tv.

You start to notice the blockyness, and poor animations due to lack of frames, etc. It's the same sort of issue syou see in poly games, early ones lacked detail, poor animations, etc.

Chrono Cross actually still holds up pretty well compared to most other ps1 games. Go compare it to say, legend of dragoon, and you'll see what I mean.

Mentalpatient87:Mike_LowELL: What did I say that you disagree with? Or is this one of those "I disagree you but I don't quite have the knowledge of the topic to refute your opinions, so I'll try to paint you as a smarmy elitist" conversations?

Well, for starters you're using difficulty and "who did it first" as a gauge for artistic merit. You wrote an entire paragraph about how easily you beat Portal, but not ONE mention of the backstory hinted by the graffiti on the walls, the ideas alluded to by the Chell/GLaDoS relationship, the design of GlaDOS herself, the Companion Cube, nothing. Your ideas of what constitutes art are entirely farked, and you're a smarmy elitist about it. Just shut up, your opinion is nowhere near as great as you think it is and your blog sucks.

Dude, he is a troll. Don't put effort into your response. The basis of his argument is easily countered by just saying Nickleback.

secularsage:Antimatter: Videogames are no different then film really, it's just they let the viewer have some control over how the story is presented, rather then being passively taking in the experience.

Video games are ENTIRELY different than film. In a film because the person experiencing the game isn't just passively viewing it; he or she is actually interacting with it and causing the story to happen.

If you had a film where you watched a one-note protagonist with a giant sword and a pair of guns annihilate hundreds of similar-looking villains using the same set of animations and juggles over and over and over, you'd be bored to tears. But in a game, you'd say, "Wow, Devil May Cry is really fun" and you'd ignore the fact that the story doesn't make a lot of sense or that you wind up replaying the same moments repeatedly just to progress on to the next section.

And this leads to a different desired experience. Most video gamers would rather complete repetitive actions over and over than sit through a long non-interactive sequence or ride on a Half-Life-style tramway over which they have little control. Cutscenes and non-interactive sequences are fine for a brief break in the action, but there's a reason gamers tend to dread the lengthy ones.

Player interaction doesn't mean it's not art though. Even the most boring, pretentious, popcorn fest would still be considered a work of art, if it's a movie. Many a director made their fortune off such films.

Players tend to hate FMV because it removes control if left too long. Good game design should tell the story with the player, and not just to them. The players ability to effect the story is what separates a game form other works of art imho.

Half life 1 was interesting because never did the game take you out of Gordon, despite telling the story. Yes, the tram ride was long, but it was akin to the credit opening in many films, that are there for beauty, rather then main plot advancement. It set the stage, along with the first 'level' of the game.

Valve later pushed that method with HL2 and portal.

You do have the flipside, with games like Metal gear solid 4, which had 40+ minute FMV telling you the story, broken up by gameplay segments that were rather short by comparison.

As far as horrors from the underground caverns go, troglodytes are relatively "meh." Dwarf Fortress has much worse stuff. You'll occasionally get procedurally generated monsters that are impossible to kill in combat, because they either have no organs that you can skewer, or are made of a random material that is nearly impossible to damage. (It's very hard to kill a 20-foot-tall chittering, eyeless rabbit made entirely of granite, for example.) Worse, they can have nasty things like blood which gives you a disease that causes your skin to rot off, but you don't realize it until all of the dwarves that are covered in the stuff have already tracked a trail of it back into your dining hall...

PirateKing:Nurglitch: Antimatter: Videogames are no different then film really, it's just they let the viewer have some control over how the story is presented, rather then being passively taking in the experience.

Video games aren't necessarily narrative. Tetris, for example, is not a metaphor for anything.

It's a metaphor for the Communist takeover of Eastern europe. As the proletariat descends into poverty, they must find ways to work together. Once they find a way to fit into the existing power structure, and reach a critical mass, all obstacles are removed. The line block is a revolution. If the proles don't work together, eventually the system descends into anarchy. As the march of history progresses, the people will work faster and faster, until eventually the glory of the Soviet will cover the whole world.

As far as horrors from the underground caverns go, troglodytes are relatively "meh." Dwarf Fortress has much worse stuff. You'll occasionally get procedurally generated monsters that are impossible to kill in combat, because they either have no organs that you can skewer, or are made of a random material that is nearly impossible to damage. (It's very hard to kill a 20-foot-tall chittering, eyeless rabbit made entirely of granite, for example.) Worse, they can have nasty things like blood which gives you a disease that causes your skin to rot off, but you don't realize it until all of the dwarves that are covered in the stuff have already tracked a trail of it back into your dining hall...

As far as DF horrors go, I don't think much beats the horrific syndromes sprayed out by the clouds in evil embarks.

Mentalpatient87:Well, for starters you're using difficulty and "who did it first" as a gauge for artistic merit.

No I'm not. When I said "The Lost Vikings did it better over twenty years ago", the important modifier is "The Lost Vikings did it better". The Lost Vikings is still a better game than Portal. I make timeframe a reference because you now have a class of videogame player who thinks that games like Portal are actually setting precedent in the game industry. (Once again, see Canabalt.) Do not confuse me with the nuthuggers who think the best game ever made is the one they played when they were thirteen.

Mentalpatient87:You wrote an entire paragraph about how easily you beat Portal, but not ONE mention of the backstory hinted by the graffiti on the walls, the ideas alluded to by the Chell/GLaDoS relationship, the design of GlaDOS herself, the Companion Cube, nothing.

Videogames are not movies, they are not books. A great story does not make a great game. I do not believe in "the game sucked, but the storytelling was super awesome, 10/10 IGN EAT MOUNTAIN DEW AND DRINK DORITOS". Journey is going to win numerous Game of the Year awards and I think that is absolutely appalling. Just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, look at the discussion above. BioShock obviously had better graphics than System Shock 2. However, I would say that BioShock had an inferior atmosphere, mood, and tension, because the game was way too easy and the character skill development systems weren't nearly as good. Games are holistic. The story is only as good as the other devices and mechanics which are being built into the game. Despite the technological improvements in BioShock, I would say that System Shock 2 is the better game, and by a fairly wide margin.

Portal's storytelling is not bad. When compared to most storytelling in the medium, it's actually quite good. But storytelling is one means to game design. It's the delivery of that storytelling which I don't find interesting. The backstory isn't "hinted", it's spoonfed to the player. The game's "shocking reveal" ("the cake is a lie") might as well come with a series of neon signs attached to it, because it was so painfully easy to find that it loses all impact. (This is why I said that the game would have hugely benefited from a Super Mario World-style stage progression, where you play and discover all the details about the game world in multiple playthroughs.) And since the game is so easy (due to the overabundance of checkpoints and the general ease of completing the puzzles), there's absolutely no tension to build upon that atmosphere and storytelling. It's tough to establish that GladOS is truly evil and dangerous when I can take the thing out with a simple "three strikes" boss fight.

When you pull away the story in Portal, as generally engaging as that story might be, you have what you have: A primitive, basic puzzle game (built on an admittedly interesting gimmick) which not only lacks challenge or difficulty, but doesn't even have enough complexity that you can go back and say "Well, the puzzles were simple, but wait until the custom content creators sink their teeth into these concepts!" Would I tell someone "Don't play Portal ever"? No. But it's definitely not one of the games "you absolutely must play before you die" or "greatest games" material. Like Limbo, Portal is one part of a fully-functional, engaging genre stripped down into what is essentially a short movie. Since Portal fails to provide tension and atmosphere through game mechanics, it impacts the ability of the game to provide atmosphere through its storytelling. This is first-person puzzle-platforming, with enemies, and consequences for mistakes. That is a classic game.

If you don't like that, I don't really care. Just don't characterize my brief, off-hand complaints about Portal's mechanics as a rebuttal of the game as a whole.

thecpt:Dude, he is a troll. Don't put effort into your response. The basis of his argument is easily countered by just saying Nickleback.

Art is often defined as anything that elicits an emotional response. I've never had an emotion response to a video game. Well, besides throwing a tantrum when my favorite Wizardry character died when I was 11 years old.

sprawl15:As far as DF horrors go, I don't think much beats the horrific syndromes sprayed out by the clouds in evil embarks.

I've been following the devlog, but I haven't actually played a fortress since that was added. I remember that I did like fairly challenging embarks, but yeah, evil embarks are a great bit dicier, now that a random fog can sweep in at any time and transform half your dwarves into undead husks that don't feel pain and hunger for the flesh of the survivors...

Back when I was more into the game, I had a couple of fortresses survive until FPS death, but I've been reluctant to pick it back up again. Playing well requires enough micromanagement that it kind of makes my brain feel burned the next day...

Martian_Astronomer:I've been following the devlog, but I haven't actually played a fortress since that was added. I remember that I did like fairly challenging embarks, but yeah, evil embarks are a great bit dicier, now that a random fog can sweep in at any time and transform half your dwarves into undead husks that don't feel pain and hunger for the flesh of the survivors...

The husks created by clouds are pretty much unkillable. You need to incinerate them, magma them, or turn them into obsidian.

The other clouds are my favorite ones, though. Permanent internal organ death and bleeding that spreads by said blood being tracked all over your fortress doesn't kill anyone but you abandon pretty fast anyway because everything is covered in bleeding from the ass.

Why do people like that game? I guess its good at showing Japanese style, but I don't actually know anyone who liked it as a game. Same goes for Heavy Rain when it shows up on these "Art" lists.

Interesting. I've had the opposite experience-- haven't met anyone myself who doesn't think it's great or at least solid. Among other things, I think that the art style is wonderful, the brush ability is a fun and unique tool, and the take on the stories/mythology it's based on is fascinating.

Perhaps not your cup of tea, but art-wise I would love to see it get a nod here.

This. It's got some major gameplay flaws (combat could be better, bosses get repeated like whoa) but narratively, it's damn near perfect.

Also, I'm pretty sure the plan is for MoMA to have 40 games, isn't it? This is just the first part of the list or something?

Mike_LowELL:What did I say that you disagree with? Or is this one of those "I disagree you but I don't quite have the knowledge of the topic to refute your opinions, so I'll try to paint you as a smarmy elitist" conversations?

Can you really expect something smarter in a video games thread, much less a "video games are art" thread?

Nurglitch:Antimatter: Videogames are no different then film really, it's just they let the viewer have some control over how the story is presented, rather then being passively taking in the experience.

Video games aren't necessarily narrative. Tetris, for example, is not a metaphor for anything.

From Wikipedia's Modern Art page:Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era.[1] The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation.[2] Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the traditional arts, toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art.

Now we can debate the definition of art and modern art, but to me, the games chosen, that I recognized, (and the ones earmarked for future addition) are generally a break from their predecessors or a re-imagining/evolution of the genre drastic enough to create it's own mark. Clearly popularity has to play some part too as they are starting with games that have been around for quite some time.

sprawl15:The husks created by clouds are pretty much unkillable. You need to incinerate them, magma them, or turn them into obsidian.

Right. I got them confused with the zombies, I think, which are tough but have the "pulping" system, so you can still beat them to death.

I like challenging biomes, and I'm perfectly okay with having the outside be really dangerous, but frankly I thought the evil weather husks were a bit much. Part of what makes DF fun, in my opinion, is looking at the disastrous destruction of your fort and thinking "Wait, I could have handled that if I'd done X,Y, and Z." The only thing you can really do to protect yourself from evil clouds is to never go outside, never build anything above ground, etc.

thecpt:yeah, one that said "i was joking." usually when someone starts posting tls/drs they shouldn't have their Boobies be something pants on head without everything afterwards being considered a joke.

Fair enough. My apologies.

moothemagiccow:Can you really expect something smarter in a video games thread, much less a "video games are art" thread?

Believe me, I don't come in here to start fights. I'm passionate about the topic, I'm sure most of the people here are. I just don't think anyone realizes how exhaustive and comprehensive these debates have to be. I have no problem with people saying what their favorite games are. By all means, go ahead. But when people say "Game X is art" (potentially implying other games aren't as worthy of the praise) or "Games A through J at the ten best games ever" (implying hundreds of other games are not one of the ten-best), you're putting your foot down. You have to know all of those games. If people do that, they can't be surprised when people are pulling obscure, classic games into the fold and challenging any assertions. That's all. And people can't be surprised when someone challenges conventional wisdom.

Mike_LowELL:Believe me, I don't come in here to start fights. I'm passionate about the topic, I'm sure most of the people here are. I just don't think anyone realizes how exhaustive and comprehensive these debates have to be. I have no problem with people saying what their favorite games are. By all means, go ahead. But when people say "Game X is art" (potentially implying other games aren't as worthy of the praise) or "Games A through J at the ten best games ever" (implying hundreds of other games are not one of the ten-best), you're putting your foot down. You have to know all of those games. If people do that, they can't be surprised when people are pulling obscure, classic games into the fold and challenging any assertions. That's all. And people can't be surprised when someone challenges conventional wisdom.

Really? You honestly are trying to claim a "well he started it" justification for how people have responded to you? You threw down the gauntlet and continually expected people to accept your spurious definition of "art" at every turn. Here, let me refresh your memory from the first time you posted in this thread:

"A game which neglects every rule of competent game design and ends up with a passionate following because it recreates the aesthetics of silent film design. Therefore, it's "art". Lol."

Game difficulty isn't the only facet to good game design. Sure, Portal (the 2007 version) was fairly easy to beat. The thing is, that's only part of what made it so interesting to fans. The atmosphere, monologue, and representation made it a hit more than the actual game play specifics. I'd be curious to know your take on sandbox games since most of your quantifiers seem to be how challenging a game is.

In fact, going to the Bioshock vs SS2 discussion, game difficulty/construction is the weakness of both games. Bioshock's lack of death consequence was a terrible drain on immersion factor. Similarly, SS2's lazy enemy spawning design hurt immersion and felt like a cheap cop-out for the sake of difficulty. Both are still convey strong emotions while being played.

0100010:"A game which neglects every rule of competent game design and ends up with a passionate following because it recreates the aesthetics of silent film design. Therefore, it's "art". Lol."

Game difficulty isn't the only facet to good game design.

That was in reference to Limbo, unless you seriously think he was trying to say a game whose best asset (glados) is a running voiceover is central to silent film design.

0100010:SS2's lazy enemy spawning design hurt immersion and felt like a cheap cop-out for the sake of difficulty

On the contrary, the enemy respawning was crucial for establishing no area of the ship as ever really being safe and ensured a minimal constant level of pressure on the player. There is no other way to do it, short of adding artificial resources that act as a time choke (you need to eat and there's limited food on each deck driving you forward). It also wasn't really much additional difficulty unless you dawdled a lot, and even then it was only the occasional additional enemy and never anything particularly scary (DOZENS OF RUMBLERS). Its ultimate gameplay change was making you find a safe place to play the gamepig and finally slay you some dragons.

I'm assuming you aren't talking about during alarms, as that's an entirely different topic.

Gosling:EVE, well, yes, I would call that a performance piece on man's inhumanity to man.

[csb]I can tell you this is true from my first experience in 0.0 sec space, it went something like this

Me: Warp through gate in to dead end 0.0 sector of space with my pinto amarr cruiser and a few drones. Assaulted by waiting battleship instantly down to almost no health.Goonwarm pirate: "give us all your money and we won't destroy your ship."Me: "What's to stop you from destroying me once I pay?" *while looking up self destruct command, I have a new ship several jumps back so I didn't particularly care about this one, but I didn't want to get Pod Killed either*Goonswarm pirate: "Just do it."Me: KABOOOM!Now In the chaos of me blowing my ship up I try to move towards the gate in my pod...not knowing that pods move about as fast as a geo metro filled with ethanol on a January day in North Dakota.Goonswarm battlship hits ShadowLAnCeR's pod in the nuts with a 1600mm cannon.

sprawl15:0100010: "A game which neglects every rule of competent game design and ends up with a passionate following because it recreates the aesthetics of silent film design. Therefore, it's "art". Lol."

Game difficulty isn't the only facet to good game design.

That was in reference to Limbo, unless you seriously think he was trying to say a game whose best asset (glados) is a running voiceover is central to silent film design.

"If he'd restricted that attitude to just Limbo, but that's not the case. Here, let me dig up another quote to illustrate this point (didn't include the link to a youtube video of a quake walkthrough):

Like Limbo, Portal is one part of a fully-functional, engaging genre stripped down into what is essentially a short movie. Since Portal fails to provide tension and atmosphere through game mechanics, it impacts the ability of the game to provide atmosphere through its storytelling. This is first-person puzzle-platforming, with enemies, and consequences for mistakes. That is a classic game."

0100010: SS2's lazy enemy spawning design hurt immersion and felt like a cheap cop-out for the sake of difficulty

On the contrary, the enemy respawning was crucial for establishing no area of the ship as ever really being safe and ensured a minimal constant level of pressure on the player. There is no other way to do it, short of adding artificial resources that act as a time choke (you need to eat and there's limited food on each deck driving you forward). It also wasn't really much additional difficulty unless you dawdled a lot, and even then it was only the occasional additional enemy and never anything particularly scary (DOZENS OF RUMBLERS). Its ultimate gameplay change was making you find a safe place to play the gamepig and finally slay you some dragons.

I'm assuming you aren't talking about during alarms, as that's an entirely different topic.

I enjoyed most of SS2 when it came out and raved about it to friends. However, it has some issues that hurt the tone. There are spots where it's possible to watch the enemies spawn with or without the alarm sounding. The most glaring I remember is having one of the suicide butlers spawn in front of me while I was staring into a dead-end cubby. Nothing kills immersion like clearing out an area and having something re-spawn with no way it could have gotten there realistically.

0100010:Game difficulty isn't the only facet to good game design. Sure, Portal (the 2007 version) was fairly easy to beat. The thing is, that's only part of what made it so interesting to fans. The atmosphere, monologue, and representation made it a hit more than the actual game play specifics.

I understand. I think the writing and narrative elements (as compared to most of the videogames that I've played) are fairly good. I consider the game structure and level design used to tell that story as the problem. The game is portrayed as a subversion of the narrative-driven action title but it doesn't make the necessary steps to secure that illusion. Everything is still obviously on-rails. (And just to note, I have played very, very few games where I thought "narrative at the expense of mechanics" worked. I thought Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was awesome, but other than that, I draw blanks.)

0100010:I'd be curious to know your take on sandbox games since most of your quantifiers seem to be how challenging a game is.

Based on what I've played, I like Grand Theft Auto III and Crackdown, and haven't cared much for everything else. (Although I've yet to play Dead Rising, which I've heard positive things about.) Sandbox games just need to be as difficult as necessary to encourage some experimentation and place the easiest options out of reach. Ultimately, my major beef with the genre has become the unnecessary collection mechanics which have found their way into the genre (Vice City, San Andreas, Saints Row).

0100010:In fact, going to the Bioshock vs SS2 discussion, game difficulty/construction is the weakness of both games. Bioshock's lack of death consequence was a terrible drain on immersion factor. Similarly, SS2's lazy enemy spawning design hurt immersion and felt like a cheap cop-out for the sake of difficulty. Both are still convey strong emotions while being played.

I was perfectly okay with that, since ammunition was limited and it never gave you an opportunity to rest or screw around. Within the context of that game's mechanics, it was fine with me.

Mike_LowELL:0100010: I'd be curious to know your take on sandbox games since most of your quantifiers seem to be how challenging a game is.

Based on what I've played, I like Grand Theft Auto III and Crackdown, and haven't cared much for everything else. (Although I've yet to play Dead Rising, which I've heard positive things about.) Sandbox games just need to be as difficult as necessary to encourage some experimentation and place the easiest options out of reach. Ultimately, my major beef with the genre has become the unnecessary collection mechanics which have found their way into the genre (Vice City, San Andreas, Saints Row).

How about the less fps/tps games like SimCity or The Sims? There's a lot more than exploration when it comes to sandboxing games.

0100010: In fact, going to the Bioshock vs SS2 discussion, game difficulty/construction is the weakness of both games. Bioshock's lack of death consequence was a terrible drain on immersion factor. Similarly, SS2's lazy enemy spawning design hurt immersion and felt like a cheap cop-out for the sake of difficulty. Both are still convey strong emotions while being played.

I was perfectly okay with that, since ammunition was limited and it never gave you an opportunity to rest or screw around. Within the context of that game's mechanics, it was fine with me.

It sounds like you value pacing and difficulty rather than tone and immersion. Not every game is designed to challenge a player's abilities, nor should it. If tone and immersion aren't important parts of SS2, then lots of content in that game is wasted effort.

I already had my JC pic hotlinked and ready to express his disappointment, but I see you have already brought it up.

And little did I know this thread turned into somewhat of a flamewar. I should read before I post.

There's a reason I have Mike_LowELL favorited, because he makes threads become win. He will frequently troll, but I didn't believe so in this thread. I wish I could weigh in on this some but I never played SS2, just Bioshock, but I would consider the game art.

0100010:How about the less fps/tps games like SimCity or The Sims? There's a lot more than exploration when it comes to sandboxing games.

The problem for me with most of those games is that the game world never ever bites back. Sim City and Minecraft generally have the same problem: Once you've built something, it's awfully easy to maintain. (This may have changed in the later Sim City titles, which I only spent a brief amount of time with and I understand that they became increasingly complex.) I mean, I quite enjoyed Sim City 2000 when I was younger, but once you have your entire city of gigantic robotic buildings launch off into space, that's really a "Time to go home, you've done everything" moment. (Obviously, you can imagine that I think Dwarf Fortress, the game which is designed so you will inevitably and eventually lose, is absolutely grand.) As far as The Sims goes, I could generally care less for it. I did play the original game in the series and got bored with it very quickly. Other than that, I've stayed away from most of those games.

0100010:It sounds like you value pacing and difficulty rather than tone and immersion. Not every game is designed to challenge a player's abilities, nor should it. If tone and immersion aren't important parts of SS2, then lots of content in that game is wasted effort.

Not every game has to be extremely difficult, although I would argue that if you're going to make a puzzle game, you really, really have to push the player to their limits and rule out any "process of elimination" strategies, which Portal does not. (The second game makes that even worse by making it fairly obvious where the portals go...once you've found the wall for them.) For instance, I think that Super Metroid is an absolutely fantastic game in spite of its low difficulty level. Challenge and difficulty are just means to a great game. But I would argue that the atmosphere in games like Limbo and Portal (especially the second half of Portal, when it's clear that GLaDOS is out to kill you) absolutely rely on the threat of consequence and punishment for failure. There are even save points within individual tasks and puzzles. It's difficult to place myself in Chell's predicament when the game is just going to load the beginning of the section.